I think an important step Google could take to make Street View more private would be to remove from imagery anything which moves between shots. As a bad but easy-to-understand example, if the van had three sets of cameras facing sideways as it moved, the pixels for each point in space could vote: agreement in two out of three means an object is fixed. This way the number of people photographed could be greatly reduced, resulting in clearer pictures of the streets which is what Google says they're after anyway. Alternatively, each pass through an area on different days could be used all the same to decide on impermanent pixels to remove.
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